Owen Voortman rips the puck past Chatham Maroons’ goaltender Brock Lane during the Lincolns’ 8-5 win on March 7. Jaden Lee assisted on the goal, which gave Lee his 48th helper of the season, the most assists in a single season by a Lincolns since the formation of the GOJHL in 2007. The win over the Maroons also tied the all-time franchise record for wins in a season, with the Lincs winning their 42nd game of the year, the same mark hit in the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons. Photo by Scott Stroud
By Spencer Seymour
In the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons, the St. Marys Lincolns won 42 games. More than three decades later, this year’s Lincolns’ team now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the highly successful teams from back-to-back seasons, having hit 42 victories on the year by winning their last two games of the regular season.
The Lincolns first travelled to London on March 5 for a rematch of a heated clash against the Nationals on March 1. Head coach Jeff Bradley said the middle period left something to be desired, but the team’s showing in the other 40 minutes was solid.
“We’ve been trying to concentrate on being in the right spots defensively and doing the right things with the puck, and I thought we did that in the first period,” Bradley told the Independent. “In the second period, I felt we lacked a bit of compete, but in the third, we showed that when we want to take over a game, we can.”
The Lincolns took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission on the backs of a goal by Chase MacQueen-Spence five-and-a-half minutes into the game, which came after a steal by Kyle Morey who set up the Lincolns’ assistant captain all alone in front of the London goal.
MacQueen-Spence received praise from the bench boss for continuing to elevate his performance when it matters most.
“It’s what we’ve come to expect with Chase (MacQueen-Spence), but he really seems to be getting to a different gear for the playoffs. He is playing like a leader and like a guy who is ready to do what he did last year and step up in the big games.”
The lacklustre second frame by the Lincolns saw Joshua Lepain tie the game at one apiece just a minute and 43 seconds into the period. The game stayed deadlocked until midway through the third when a point shot by Jacob Montesi sailed by Nationals’ netminder Finn Wilson, the fourth of the season by the 19-year-old defenceman.
Chase McDougall pounced on another great setup pass from Morey, one-timing home his third of the campaign to end a 19-game goal drought to put the Lincolns up by a pair of goals. London made it interesting with a goal during the final minute of regulation to make it 3-2, but an empty net goal by Jaden Lee in the dying moments of the contest sealed the Lincolns’ 4-2 victory.
In goal, Colby Booth-Housego turned in another stellar game, making 31 saves to backstop the Lincolns to the win. With Booth-Housego resting in the Lincs’ final game 48 hours later, the Lincolns’ two goaltenders, Booth-Housego and Nico Armellin, finished the year with a goals-against average of 1.77 or lower, and a save percentage of 0.937 or higher.
Bradley acknowledged the game didn’t carry a ton of significance in the long-term view of the season, but was an opportunity to continue rounding into post-season form.
“In terms of the standings, it’s a bit of a meaningless game for us, so it’s harder than normal to find motivation to be at your best with the playoffs coming up. You’re just trying to get through it and take some kind of positive out of it, which I think we did and now, it’s time to ramp things up.”
An unfortunate blemish on the game came in the second period when Ethan Coups was assessed a five-minute major and a game misconduct for head contact, for which he was subsequently suspended for two games.
Coups will be eligible to step back into the Lincolns’ lineup in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
Lincs win high-scoring season finale against Maroons
The Lincolns returned home for their final tune-up before the playoffs and, despite both St. Marys and the Chatham Maroons having nowhere to move in the standings, it ended up being a fiercely physical battle with both teams combining for 96 penalty minutes.
Despite the theatrics of 13 goals and 28 infractions by both teams, Bradley once again felt there wasn’t much weight to the end result. But, the head coach still saw several highlights.
“A lot like the London game, it’s difficult to really evaluate and put a ton of stock in a game like that given the circumstances of the standings and where we’re at in the season. We had a bit of a piecemeal lineup. It was nice to see Ben (Kraft) get his first win in the league. Ben (Randall) got to play in a bit bigger role. And Jaden (Lee) getting rewarded for his great season with the excitement from the rest of his teammates was great to see.”
The excitement surrounding Lee came after the Lincolns’ leading point-getter recorded his 48th assist of the season on a powerplay goal by Owen Voortman with just a minute and 20 seconds left in the third. Lee’s 48 helpers are the most assists in a single season by a Lincoln since the formation of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League (GOJHL) in 2007.
Lee finished the season with 29 goals and 77 points, and his linemates, Luca Spagnolo and Owen Voortman, finished second and third in points on the Lincolns respectively, with Spagnolo ending the season with 35 goals and 66 points, while Voortman registered 27 goals and 57 points.
The Lincs scored the game’s first goal against the Maroons just two minutes and 19 seconds into the game when Ryan Hodkinson put St. Marys up 1-0.
Just over nine-and-a-half minutes later, an offensive eruption began with both teams scoring a combined seven goals in seven minutes and 37 seconds. McDougall scored once again, while Morey, Lincoln Moore and Blake Elzinga also found the back of the net.
Lee and Quinn Gavin-White added goals to the Lincolns’ tally in the second period.
The Maroons have made a pattern of coming to the Pyramid Recreation Centre (PRC) and doing things that previously hadn’t been accomplished against the Lincolns. Back on Oct. 25, when Chatham downed St. Marys 4-3, not only had the Lincolns not yet lost a game, but the Maroons also became the first team to lead the Lincolns by two goals.
This time, despite losing 8-5, the Maroons became the first team to pot more than four goals on the Lincolns this season. Though the team is not used to giving up five goals in a single game, Bradley stayed even-keel when discussing the unfamiliar number of pucks hitting the back of the St. Marys net.
“As an organization, we’ve always prided ourselves on our defensive structure,” said Bradley. “We’re really proud of our goals against. Giving up five was certainly not what we wanted, but when you look at the big picture, it didn’t really hurt us. We still finished the year with under 100 (goals against).”
The Lincolns end the campaign with just 91 goals against in their 50 games and an outstanding goal differential of plus-140. The next-best goal differential was Chatham, which finished the season with plus-95.
Even through the high-scoring final game before the playoffs, one of the Lincs’ blueliners left a very positive impression on the head coach.
“Evan (Roach) was outstanding. I thought it was by far his best game, and it came against a top team in this league, so it really allowed us to see what he has to offer in the playoffs. He was simple, he defended hard and he made really good plays.
“He’s in an environment here with good players and I think the direction he’s received combined with his work ethic has allowed him to show what he can do,” Bradley continued. “He’s a smart kid who loves taking in more information. Mike (Herman) is full of knowledge and he just wants to take it all in.”
Bradley was candid in discussing the one negative weighing on him and the coaching staff as the start of the post-season approaches – who doesn’t suit up for Game 1 of the playoffs.
“We have tough decisions to make. We’ve got 14 good forwards, seven good defencemen and two good goaltenders. But ultimately, we have to make decisions about who will and won’t play in Game 1. A lot of guys have been playing really well so the decisions are even harder, which is better than the alternative because it means you have amazing depth, but sitting guys is definitely the worst part of coaching, especially when you have so many guys playing as well as our guys are.”
What makes the decision-making process even more difficult is that many of the team’s depth forwards who have found themselves rotating in and out of the lineup have all heated up. McDougall ended the season on a four-game point streak. Elzinga recorded at least a point in eight of his last nine games. Noah VandenBrink has goals in four of his last five and played arguably his best game in two years on March 1. Ryan Cornfield had points in eight of his previous 10 going into the game on March 5, which Cornfield had to exit after one shift due to an upper-body injury. And Quinn Gavin-White has put up points in five of his last six.
After the Strathroy Rockets lost 6-3 to the Listowel Cyclones on March 10, the Lincolns will meet the Kitchener-Waterloo Siskins in the opening round of the playoffs. As of press time, the GOJHL hadn’t granted permission for teams to announce their first-round schedule, but the series is likely to begin on March 14.
“It’s time to get to work. Every practice means something. Every meeting is important. We have a lot we want to do to get ready for Game 1. We’ll do a lot of special-teams preparation on Tuesday (March 11) and then we’ll focus on five-on-five on Thursday (March 13). Everything we do means a ton now.”
In the other first-round matchups, the second-placed Chatham Maroons will face the seventh-ranked Elmira Sugar Kings. The third-versus-sixth series will pit the Stratford Warriors, who have home-ice advantage, against the LaSalle Vipers. Lastly, the fourth-seeded Listowel Cyclones will meet the fifth-placed London Nationals.
